


spoken word (the applied linguistics remix)

by negativecosine



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-18
Updated: 2010-05-18
Packaged: 2017-10-09 13:37:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/88058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/negativecosine/pseuds/negativecosine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The constraints of language have a way of shaping a discourse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	spoken word (the applied linguistics remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sole_Sakuma](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sole_Sakuma/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Scenes from a Troubling Tragedy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/77614) by [Sole_Sakuma](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sole_Sakuma/pseuds/Sole_Sakuma). 



Spoken Word (the Applied Linguistics remix)

**Dialectology** (_Languages they speak_)

"Albus, was war deines Bruders Name?"

Aberforth speaks English, Irish, Latin, and just enough Greek to get by in some of the transfigurations he likes to dabble with. He doesn't use Irish anymore; used to use it with a neighbor, a Muggle boy he liked, but the boy stopped using it, so Aberforth did to. He stopped using Latin and Greek aloud the moment he left Hogwarts--he's so glad they're talking about taking those out of the curriculum. The ablative is stupid and the professors were always more concerned with _how_ things were said than with _what_ was being said. This leaves Aberforth with English, and while his command of the language is not a delicate one, it is suited well to his purposes.

He also knows a few words in German, thank you very much.

"Aberforth. Ich habe-"

And he's not stupid. He knows his name in any language, he knows when he's being talked about.

***

Albus speaks, reads, and writes in: Latin, Greek, Arabic, Irish, Old Irish, Old English, English (and it is interesting that this is never first on his list when he tells someone this), French, German, and a little bit of Welsh and Chinese. He can write in Egyptian heiroglyphs but can't speak the language, and can read most things written in Italian and Spanish by general principle of, as he puts it, "the adorable consistency of Romance." He wants to learn Russian and Hebrew. He loves being able to talk to anyone he meets in their native language, loves this way of learning a person.

Learning Gellert like this-

Well.

"-I have told you countless times that we-"

Gellert does interesting things to the English language, having come to it more as a temporary guest than an immigrant. He can read and write exquisitely in English, and Albus does know enough about grace in German to know that Gellert's is especially fine. His Latin is almost mathematically rigorous; his Greek, flowing and poetic. He does not bother with, quote, "lingua humilis humile," so he does not know anything of Irish, old or otherwise, nor is he especially interested in the Welsh grammar Albus strategically left under his pillow. He does spend quite a lot of time and effort drilling Albus for Chinese, and loves telling dirty jokes in French in front of Aberforth. He also likes doing this-

"Ja, ja... wir sollen nicht in German in front of him speak. I understand."

-switching, blending, watching one brother seethe and the other swoon at how casually he can change his mind about entire paradigms of cognition. How easily he could abandon his mother's tongue, and switch to whatever best suited his present need. (And so with people, Albus occasionally fears. So with him, so with everyone: Gellert will readily abandon him for some fancy, some tissue-thin excuse about pragmatism. Albus largely chooses not to think about that.)

  
**Morphology **(Shapes things(words) may take)

Gellert talks about humans as specimens. "What exquisite creatures," he will occasionally exclaim--usually not in English--when he observes someone reclining in some odd position, or partaking of some basic manual labor. "What poise, what fascinating shapes!" He often waxes on about how tragic it is that he has no skill for art, how he longs to capture the sheer oddity of the human form. The legs, the spine, the brow. He speaks as if none of this applies to him.

Occasionally, Albus cannot defy his own old Gryffindor tendendencies, and takes these ramblings as a personal challenge to force Gellert back into the human template, back into human form. He pins him down, strategically, on the hard wood floor so he can feel all the pressure points of his joints against the plane, so he can be made more aware of his own oddity in form. Gellert always moves more, talks more, breathes harder when Albus does this, when some minor semantic quibble turns into a wrestling match. They are but boys, after all, and Gellert is smaller, less tolerant of discomfort, more aware of the implications of getting pinned to the ground.

This time, it is over good and evil. (They are but boys, but they are also wizards. They never wrestle unless something grandiose is at stake.) It is over, of all things, lies of omission, which leads to deception through intent, which leads to a fierce discussion of how one would even determine such a thing objectively, which leads to a fiercer discussion of what objectivity entails, which leads to a septilingual hissing oneupsmanship almost directly into each others' mouths.

"Aequabilitas." Albus has his hand in Gellert's hair, fisted tight. He tugs his head back, exposes that long, pale throat.

"Not quite. Objektivität, Wirklichkeit." Gellert gets one knee up between Albus' thighs, cants his hips up.

"不偏不倚." Their robes get in the way, tangling and restraining, weighing them down. "Remind me to- ah, look that one up." Albus doesn't know where Gellert's hands are until he finds a wand in his face, an inch from his nose, and he holds his breath for a long second before their robes vanish entirely and Gellert tosses the wand aside again.

"Oibiachtúlachta" It occurs to Albus that he has no idea whose wand just got tossed aside. He doesn't much care.

"_Ob_," Gellert says, "also the Latin. Against. _Obicere_, to throw against. _Jacere_." Albus is sort of in love with the infinitives of verbs, and Gellert knows this well. He is at his most and least human, like this: their knobby knees are bumping together, their skin is flushed and sticky, they're panting, they are but boys, tangled on the floor, and even so--

Their foreheads are touching. They can taste each others' breath, they're going a bit cross-eyed with looking at each other. They almost never make eye contact, not after that first meeting, but times like this demand that they crawl into each others' heads, share a single brain, because how else could two mere humans coordinate the massive complexity of bones and flesh and heat and motion? One brain is not enough, the shapes are too complex.

When Aberforth finds them, hours later, Gellert wakes but does not stir. He listens to the  
inselaffen breathing, and contemplates how fragile the human system is. He drifts back to sleep with a smile easy on his lips.

  
**Lexicon **(Some words they know)

Once, Aberforth spends a full two days digging through Albus' dictionaries and lexicons, searching for a word rude enough to describe Grindelwald. He hates these books more with every wisp-thin page he turns, and pinches them with harder and harder force, trying to impress the ridges of his fingerprints into the parchment, trying to leave some mark on the language.

No word is disgusting enough. Aberforth has no gift for words, but he has enough of a sense of the shapes of language that he can see this easily. There is no word that fully encompasses anything he wishes to express-- _hatred _and _love _are inadequate in describing the absolute expanding pressure he feels in his chest with each one; _otium_ and _negotium_ hardly capture the fervor with which Aberforth approaches both work (physical or magical, he uses brute force and determination in both) and leisure (days-long stints of drinking, local muggle girls, goats, whatever). Aberforth has long known this, but this just confirms it: words are beneath him, words are fragile, words are useless. If he cannot use them to tell Albus how necessary it is for Grindelwald to get the _hell_ out of their mother's house, then words are of no value at all.

**Prosody **(Rhythms they work in)

Albus likes anapests and dactyls.

Aberforth likes spondees. Sometimes trochees, but mostly a pounding, consistent rhythm.

Albus likes the lilt of a trisyllabic foot. He likes the trip of 3/4 and 3/3 time. He likes jigs that are mostly triplets. It's not some grand notion of trinitarianism: he just likes the musicality of it. So waltz, really, is perfect. In his head he shuffles around long swaths of Greek epics, the hexameter sifting beautifully into place around their physical feet. The pun makes Albus laugh, soft and low, into Gellert's shoulder. He's taller than him, but lets him lead, allows himself to be guided for once.

This is special. This is more special than what they do on the floor or the bed or the meadow, because this is something they _get_ to do. It is weird, yes, two young men dancing, but not so weird that they need to kick Ariana out of the room, not so weird that they need to lock Aberforth out of the house. It falls just short of the threshold, just short of what will drive the sister to hysterics or the brother to blind fury.

It is special enough that it drives Albus to distraction: he is not physically graceful at the best of times, and he is so caught up in the poetic rhythms that he cannot keep track of his feet. And every time he stumbles, Gellert catches him, and every time Gellert has to catch him, Albus laughs. It strikes him as so deeply absurd, that _this_ is the thing he's not good at, _this_ is his flaw. It is so trivial, so hilarious, compared to the rest of his genius and eptitude, that he cannot stop laughing, because it just seems _so silly_. He hears Ariana laughing, too, her sweet, clear, joyous voice. He knows that she doesn't understand why he's laughing, is simply imitating him, and he laughs harder-- here he is, possibly the second smartest wizard in the world, and his sister doesn't get the joke and his brother doesn't want to, and he tucks his laughs into Gellert's shoulder and tries to hide, because he can't stop, won't ever be able to rid himself of his own cruel sense of humor.

**Phonetics **(Sounds they make)

Aberforth is not stupid. He does know what that noise means, what makes a man make that noise. What he does not understand, what he will never understand, is the sheer heartlessness required for them to be okay with themselves, okay with doing _that_ when the walls are this thin; for if Aberforth can hear them, so can Ariana, and he knows that she will not understand, will think someone is hurting her brother.

Aberforth grumbles, vile, graphic curses under his breath, passing by Albus' door to Ariana's. The floorboards groan under him, and he intentionally steps heavier-- to drown them out or to notify them that they're not alone, or maybe both. The sounds don't quiet, don't even pause. Aberforth's close to outright stomping, his heavy boots already loud on the bare wood, but the thought of Ariana stops him.

He's right-- she's sitting bolt upright on her bed, sheet-white, legs tucked delicately under her, whites of her eyes showing around those huge blue irises as she's staring at the wall she shares with Albus. Her mouth is moving, but there is no sound coming out. Aberforth is across the room in three strides, wrapped around her in one motion. He feels monstrous when he touches Ariana: she's tiny, frail, quaking, always in simple white linen or cotton and always barefoot and her red-gold hair always loose in a halo around her, and his rough hands always leave marks on the shoulders of her robes when he holds her, but he knows that it would be a far worse crime to deny her.

She quakes, finely, and Aberforth cannot help but do the same, though of course it is for different reasons. When she finally manages to find her voice, it startles him.

"Wha. Wh." Aberforth is patient. This is the only time he is ever able to be so patient, but he has promised her that he always will be. "Whah. Wh-" Ariana puffs out her cheeks with the effort, then stops, takes a break, catches her breath. The little hitch in her voice sounds like she's near tears, and Aberforth tightens his hold on her, tries his best to ground her. "Why. Why? Ih. Is. Huh. He. He. Why is-"

This is enough. He shushes her, kissing the tears off the cheek closest to him, and pets her hair, which gets yet frizzier as he does so. "He's okay. He's fine, he just... he's happy." Something breaks in Aberforth, to admit that aloud. "His friend makes him happy, that's why he sounds like that. There's nothing to worry about, we'll just leave them be." Breaks, shatters, and the shards are going to cut someone someday. Right now, all Aberforth is concerned about is quieting his sister, who is making a noise he has not heard before. Almost as if she's--

She's. Yes. Aberforth is going to kill Albus, because Ariana is mimicking that moan, because she is happy now, too, and thinks that's how to express it. He's going to kill him, he is going to break down that door and to hell with wands and he's going to just-- yes.

  
**Phonology **(Things they can and can't say)

By the time the sun rises, Aberforth has usually milked the goats, put the sheep out, gotten the eggs, checked on all the potions, and made breakfast for Ariana. He brings it to her in bed, and helps her eat, and helps her braid her hair and tie it with those pretty blue ribbons she has, the same color as their eyes. She dresses herself, but needs him to tie the lace of her robes in the back, and then they go down to the kitchen where Aberforth will start cooking for himself and, when he is feeling particularly generous, his brother.

By the time Aberforth is done cooking, Albus usually wakes up. Unless he's been reading late into the night, or unless he was over at Madame Bagshot's house talking to Grindelwald until dawn. Sometimes he sleeps in as late as eight or nine, by which time Aberforth has usually finished eating and cleared the dishes.

Today, though, he's up early.

They do not speak.

Albus makes his own tea, because he's extremely particular about the kinds of spices involved (this month, he calls the concoction chai, and it smells too dark and foreign for Aberforth), not to mention the exact technique of brewing (in a saucepan, no magic, boil the milk in, strain the dregs out). He does so in incomplete silence, humming some alien tune under his breath. Ariana, clever girl, picks up on some of the intervals and starts humming along with small snatches of it. Albus spares her one dazzling smile, but no more.

Aberforth looks at Ariana, who looks perfectly satisfied with this small scrap of affection. He looks back at Albus, who is counting the clockwise stirs in his chai as if it were a potion. He looks at the staircase, where there are footsteps.

Footsteps. Sun barely up. And of course, of _course_. Grindelwald's hair looks like it's glowing, in the dusty pale light. He looks perfect. He looks happy. Not just satisfied, not mildly content, like Ariana, but _smugly_ happy. _Blindingly_ happy.

"He stayed?" Aberforth hears himself ask. He does not remember deciding to speak aloud.

"We were working-" Grindelwald starts, but Aberforth interrupts him, draws and aims his wand without even looking, eyes now locked on Albus.

"He. Stayed." He has never known he could sound so calm, so dangerous. Ariana looks troubled, but Aberforth only dimly registers that. "In our house. Overnight. He stayed in our mother's house, you _let_ him-"

Albus abandons the saucepan, turns fully towards Aberforth, both hands up like calming some wild animal. His voice is equally calm; it occurs to Aberforth that their voices are quite similar, really, and the difference lies in how they choose to use them. "Now, really, dear brother, I don't know that this is any of your-"

"You let _that_ stay in _our house_. You let him _in_, you let him _close_, you let him make you-" He cannot continue. Ariana is crying, softly, holding herself perfectly still. "Get out."

"Yes, yes, I will just," Grindelwald says, and from the corner of his eye Aberforth can see him fetching his cloak from the peg by the door.

"Both of you," he clarifies. His wand is still trained on Grindelwald, and his gaze on Albus. "Get out before I kill you both."

This, apparently, is what finally gives Albus some vague clue that he's done something wrong. There is fear in his eyes, real fear, and Aberforth does not believe for one second that Albus is afraid of him. No, what he is scared of, what he _should_ be scared of, is the prospect of how permanently he may have broken their house.

"Aberforth," he says softly, and he suddenly sounds so old, so tired, "Please."

Sparks shoot from Aberforth's wand, and he doesn't have to say anything more.

    **Interlude **(Non-linguistic animals)

Goats are wonderful creatures. Goats will never talk back, never argue, never try to explain, excuse, justify, cover up, lie, beg forgiveness, accuse guilt, nor pass judgment. The communicative mechanisms available to goats are blissfully simple: a _bwheeeh_, a louder _bwhaaaah_, and the multitude of little _whab _and _mehb_ sounds. They do not have an internally coherent grammar. They are not expected to be understood on any abstract level. They are concerned with absolute immediacies: food, shelter, freedom from pain or discomfort, protection from predators.

Ariana never asked much. She had a few words, some soft sounds, some louder ones. They did have some sort of grammar, this Aberforth knew, but after the attack that order deteriorated, scrambled, drifted off into some much simpler-- or perhaps much more complicated-- system of organization. Ariana had some sounds, and she could ask for food, for shelter, for freedom from pain or discomfort, for protection from predators.

Sometimes, Aberforth could provide those things.

Sometimes, he could not.

  
**Structures** (The hierarchies of power)

Here are some facts about the world:

Power belongs to those who seize it. Power does not make a man good or evil. Power does not bring out the worst in a man. Power simply brings out what makes the man himself: his internal structure, the utter abstraction of his being, all becomes perfectly visible to the world.

    **Syntax** (The progression of events)

First, Albus refuses to believe the rumors. They're _rumors_, unsubstantiated, spread by petty, stupid gossips. He knows better than to put stock in such things, not without his own investigation into the veracity of the claims.

Next, Albus tries to go about his life. This is harder than it should be. Academia seems strained, forced, a false pursuit without his beloved genius-comrade to conspire with. He writes, reads, publishes, gains accolades, corresponds with a few scholars that interest him. But his writings ring hollow to his own ears. Soulless.

Then-- well. Those who can't do, teach, Gellert would have told him. So teach he does, only a few years older than his youngest students. They adore him, even the ones that claim to hate him. It is a blessing to get out of that house, away from the heavy stifling static that death left behind. Away from Aberforth's deafening silence.

At Hogwarts, the rumors are louder. Hogwarts has always been the heart of Wizarding Britain, despite what the Ministry and the proprietors at Diagon would have anybody believe, and all rumors travel first through Hogwarts before filtering out to the rest. Here, they gain creedence. A student whose uncle was killed. A teacher who has been exchanging letters with someone there. Albus tries as hard as he can to ignore it: he is there to teach, to reign himself in, to protect the world from himself, to perhaps re-wet his dried-out quill someday, but nothing more. Except, the student whose uncle was killed spends four hours crying in his office, and her eyes are just like his sister's, and this is hard to ignore.

Then: a chase. It is so, so hard not to think of it as a game, as a challenge, as something Gellert has set up on purpose to tantalize him, to tease and provoke him. It's hard not to read the public threats as love letters, the increasingly panicked newspapers as sonnets. This is a public declaration. And it's not like Gellert is hard to find-- it's more a matter of getting through his generals (where did he find these men?), dissecting his propoganda (he always had a way with words), get through the walls and barriers, transparent as they are. He's not at all interested in hiding anymore, that much is perfectly clear.

    **Semantics **(The implications of events)

The night before he finally hunts Gellert down, Albus goes back to his mother's house in Godric's Hollow. Aberforth is still there, with his goats. The look he gives Albus when he opens the door is much like looking in a broken mirror: only their eyes match, now that Albus' face has softened with academia and Aberforth's has hardened with labor.

Aberforth makes him wait almost two full minutes in the cold. It's going to rain any second, and the mist is condensing in Albus' nascent beard and Aberforth's fuzzy eyebrows, and they stare each other down, are maybe both holding their breath, and then finally, _finally_, Aberforth grabs Albus by the elbow, and Albus mirrors it, and then they are like puppets with strings cut, both sagging onto each other, sobbing, hysterical.

Prototypically, it begins to rain at that exact moment. Had Albus the capacity to realize it, he would have laughed.

  
    **Pragmatics **(The consequences of events)

The morning after, he returns to Aberforth. He's awake at the same time as his brother-- he never slept, technically, but it's still a first.

"You didn't kill him," Aberforth says, by way of a greeting. Albus cannot tell if that is a question or a complaint or, maybe, simply a statement of the facts of the world.

"No," Albus says, because it would answer all three. "Should I have?"

"Yes," Aberforth says, and then, after a long time, "No."

"What I'm doing instead is probably torture." Albus wants to start the chai, but can't stand up, can't remember how to move in the physical world. "No books, no letters except mine-"

"You old goat," Aberforth barks, and it might be a laugh.

"Yes, well." Albus knows what he means by that, and smiles.  



End file.
